Shortcut Guide

Shortcut Guide You'll need at least five playthroughs to be able to get all achievements in The Cave which is quite time consuming and can get annoying over time. However there are several shortcuts and tips that may help you to skip certain areas/puzzles and reduce the required playtime on your nth playthrough. Some shortcuts need a specific character while others can be used with any character. You might also want to use these tips on your no death playthrough.

Skip the zoo with the Monk:

Having the Monk in your team you can easily skip almost the whole zoo level with your telekinesis skills. !!Important: Do not enter the zoo level playing as the monk, the monster will capture the first character, so make sure to switch characters before!! When you reach the ranger just wait until the cutscene is over, don't move, press the telekinesis key and it will activate the hotdog machine, then press again to obtain the hotdog and you can go straight to the monster to break the bridge and finish the zoo.

Skip the zoo with any character:

In case you don't have the Monk in your team there is a similar way to skip the zoo, but it needs a little bit more effort. In the trinket mission at the beginning activate the hotdog machine twice to get two sausages from the hotdog machine before returning the fuse to the crane. Just leave one sausage on the ground, collect the trinkets, return them to the gift shop clerk, go back to the hotdog machine an pick up the sausage. You will have to carry the sauge with you until you reach the zoo, but it's worth it. With the sausage you can directly go to the monster and break the bridge. !!Important: Don not enter the zoo level with the character who is carrying the sausage, the monster will capture the first character, so make sure to switch characters before!!

Skip parts of the castle with the Monk/Time Traveler:

Again the Monk's telekinesis skills are very helpful here, you can skip the elevator/distract the guard/steal the key section aswell as the distract the dragon/steal the gold section. Just use telekinesis to aquire the key and head right to the dragon's gate, open the gate, don't move, use telekinesis to get the gold. Similar way with the Time Traveler, you can either teleport right to the key and skip the elevator/distract guard section. Or you can leave the key where it is, use another character to distract the dragon and teleport through the gate directly to the gold. Although you didn't open the gate the game will suppose you opened it and trigger the "who left the gate open" sequence. No idea if this is a bug and will be fixed or not.

Skip the ferris wheel in the carnival:

Probably not a real shortcut but it could be very helpful if you choose the Hillbilly for your no death run as the level is quite easy, besides the ferris wheel climbing section. The only reason to go up the ferris wheel is to get the fuse. You can skip the ferris wheel when you bring your own fuse from the trinket mission. After returning the trinkets to the gift shop clerk, return to the crane you used with the crystal monster and take the fuse with you to the carnival.

Speed up gameplay with the Knight:

Also not a real shortcut, but the invincibility skills can shorten climbing sections especially in the mine cars level. Instead of climbing down you can just jump and activate invincibility before you hit the ground. Because of that I recommened to use the Knight as your first character for almost the whole no death run.

Leave characters behind/use autogroup:

You might have already noticed that the game has an auto regroup feature when you leave characters behind. If you reach a checkpoint, the others will follow you automatically. Use this feature for your own advantage! There are less possibilities to die if you only have to control one character through a level. Only few sections really require all three characters, therefore always ask yourself if you can't do it alone. Good examples for autogroup are the trinket missions at the beginning and end, collect the trinkets with all 3 characters, leave 2 characters behind, only 1 character must return to the gift shop and the others will follow automatically.

Skip the well puzzle in the museum:

Thanks to mahi-o-matic for submitting this shortcut in the comments. You can take a bucket with you to skip the tricky well puzzle in the Time Traveler's museum. Just keep the bucket you used to catch the dynamite in the mine car level and carry it with you to the museum.

Save one round trip in the gift shop/trinket mission with the Monk:

With the Monk in your team you can obtain the bucket to protect the fuse box with telekinesis. It saves you one round trip back to the other well to get the lever. Just head down to the vending machines, stand on the wooden planks on the right, stay close to the wall of the well and use the Monk's special abilities on the bucket.

Easily get the sledgehammer in the carnival with Monk or Time Traveler:

Thanks to Darth Guy for submitting this shortcut in the comments. You can obtain the sledgehammer in the carnival level with either the Time Traveler's or Monk's special abilities. Just use telekinesis or teleport to it.